Tino Caspanello

Tino Caspanello (born 1960) is a writer, scenographer, and theater director.

Life

He was born in Pagliara, Messina province, Italy. He graduated in 1983 with a degree in scenography from the Accademia di Belle Arti "Pietro Vannucci" in Perugia with two theses, one on scenography in the Theatre of the Absurd and one in history of art on the concepts of space and time as expressed in art. He continued, in the same city, a course on theater direction under the Centro di Documentazione dello Spettacolo.

After working with various theatrical companies, in 1993 he founded the Associazione Culturale Solaris – Compagnia Teatrale Pubblico Incanto.

Currently, besides his activity as a scenographer, actor, director, and author, he teaches history of art at a "psycho-pedagogic" liceu and curates theater labs at various scholastic institutions in the province of Messina.

Original Plays

*"Andante con brio, quasi una fuga"
*"Passio Domini"
*"Di notte gli angeli" ("Of Night and Angels")
*"Kiss"
*"Rosa"
*"H."
*"Mari" : Special Jury Prize, Riccione Prize for Theater 2003; This a lovely musical duet in the dialect of Messina, dedicated by the author to all those who "love without words". It is the prolonged and repetitive goodbye of a husband, who is scared of fishing alone, to his wife, who speaks incessantly in order to delay her return to the kitchen. Here too a voice vibrates sporadically interested in language, and casting the invisible net of a love spell, which traps movement to the rhythm of its score, and binds the two poignant figures to the sea night.
*"Intermezzo estivo con serenata"

Work in theater

He has worked in Messina as a theatrical scenographer both with professional theater companies and in academic contexts, staging material ranging from Plautus to Woody Allen. Since 1993 he has been responsible for the artistic direction of the small theater "La lanterna rossa" in Pagliara, home of the Associazione Culturale Solaris – Compagnia Teatrale Pubblico Incanto, where he has directed about two dozen plays, in most of which he also appeared as an actor. These have ranged from an Georges Feydeau farce to Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener", Edward Albee's "Marina", and stagings of texts by Kahlil Gibran, Emily Dickinson, Italo Calvino, Pablo Neruda and Arthur Rimbaud.

He has also worked occasionally as an actor in other companies, and has run numerous theater labs. The first two were in 1984 at the Circolo Didattico di Roccalumera and in 1985 at the Liceo Scientifico "Sequenza', Messina; in 1994, he resumed this activity, running a lab at his own home theater, "La lanterna rossa", with actress Margherita Smedile, Pagliara. Since 1996 he has run numerous theater labs, most of them at schools, but also including one in 1998 at "La lanterna rossa" with musician Giovanni Renzo.